


so am I wrong?

by hisloss



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 13:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5129834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hisloss/pseuds/hisloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had a face tattoo – it looked ridiculous – and despite the broad shoulders – not attractive; Roxas firmly squished the flare of Genuine Interest – he looked like he weighed less than a baby chocobo.</p><p>“Hey, asswipe, you’re in my seat.” He scowled evenly for good measure.</p><p>The guy – taller than Roxas by a mile if his legs were any indication – didn’t even look up from his iPod. Roxas felt his eye twitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so am I wrong?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurons_fan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurons_fan/gifts).



> For B.
> 
> A belated Birthday. Your friendship has been one of the best things that has come out of my life on the internet.

**_so am I wrong?_ **

Someone was in his seat. Fucking five weeks in to the semester. Attendance was starting to deteriorate, but Roxas had sat in the same seat every day since class started, and he _participated_. Everyone _knew_ it was his seat. If they weren’t all bolted down he probably would have flipped a desk to spook the fuckwad. He looked like he could be spooked. He had a face tattoo – it looked ridiculous – and despite the broad shoulders – not attractive; Roxas firmly squished the flare of Genuine Interest – he looked like he weighed less than a baby chocobo.

“Hey, asswipe, you’re in my seat.” He scowled evenly for good measure.

The guy – taller than Roxas by a mile if his legs were any indication – didn’t even look up from his iPod. Roxas felt his eye twitch. (It hadn’t twitched since middle school, when Sora filled their room with “rescued” crickets.) “At the risk of sounding like a _90s sitcom bully_ , I don’t see your name anywhere on it, short stack.”

Roxas bristled. “I _always_ sit there.”

The guy looked up and smirked. “Ask me a question. Something I wouldn’t know about you. If I get it right, you find another seat.”

Roxas resisted the urge to punch him in the face. The professor was late, though, so Roxas humored him.

“What’s my favorite thing to eat?”

“Sea salt ice cream.” The guy went back to scrolling through his music without waiting to know if he’d answered right.

“Who the fuck _are_ you?” Roxas demanded in a near whisper.

“Axel. Commit it to memory.”

Roxas threw his stuff into the chair two seats down and slumped into it. Axel found whatever song he’d been looking for and opened his notebook. Roxas had seen him before – the bright red hair was hard to miss – but he usually sat in the back. A pin in the shape of a Roman numeral 8 flashed on his jacket. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before.

“Isn’t that guy in your seat?” Sora broke through his thoughts.

In lieu of a response, Roxas leaned over and pulled his twin into the seat next to him by the ear, starting a scuffle.

“Your boyfriend is here,” Roxas simpered, pulling Sora hair at an angle so that they could both watch Riku walk in.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Sora grumbled, but without malice. He’d been saying it ever since freshman year and no one believed him.

“Isn’t that guy sitting in your seat?” Riku asked.

Roxas groaned and put his head down on his desk.

* * *

 

The next week, Roxas endeavored to get to class earlier, but he ended up helping Hayner figure out how to add money to his print balance in the library. So when he got to his afternoon lecture, Axel was already in his seat. He was annoyed with himself that he remembered his name, and even more annoyed that he had to crush down another flare of Genuine Interest because seriously. Who has shoulders like that.

“You’re in my seat again, asshole.” He tilted his chin up in the way that Sora said made him look taller.

Axel snorted.

Roxas resisted the urge to kick him in the shin. Hard.

“What’s my favorite movie?” he ground out between clenched teeth.

“ _Silence of the Lambs_ ,” Axel replied, going back to his notes.

Roxas glared. “There’s no way you could have known that,” he accused.

“You have a picture of a death's-head hawk moth on your notebook,” Sora interrupted smugly.

Roxas kicked him in the shin and sat down two seats away from Axel, moderately mollified. He spent the rest of the class muttering Hannibal Lector-esque insults under his breath. The lecture wasn’t all that interesting– Roxas usually BS’d the whole thing because it’s a requirement and didn’t really pique his interest enough to connect to his major. So between the muttering and the doodling in his notebook, he snuck glances at Axel and was Genuinely Disgusted with himself for thinking he had a gorgeous profile. He’s hot. Whatever.

Axel blinked at him and Roxas turned back to his notebook so fast it spasmed the muscles in his neck like whiplash. He could feel the blush spreading across the bridge of his nose. He resolved to think of a harder question for next time.

“Maybe just get to class early?” Sora suggested later in the cafeteria.

Roxas blinked. “What?”

“Or you could sit somewhere else.”

“That’s what he _wants_ me to do,” Roxas seethed, shoveling food onto his tray bitterly.

Hayner and Olette were already sitting at their usual table. After Roxas and Sora sat down Kairi and Naminé joined them, then Pence. “Where’s your boyfriend?” Seifer teased, walking past Sora.

“Yeah, where is Riku?” Olette said. “We were supposed to go to that guest lecture to get extra credit for our physics class.”

“He said he couldn’t eat lunch with us today,” Sora said. “ _And he’s not my boyfriend_.”

Everyone at the table collectively ignored him.

* * *

 

Roxas woke up from his mid-morning nap in the library on Thursday to a text from Sora.

_anthro cancelled_

A stab of disappointment clouded Roxas’s relief, and it took a moment to figure out why. He groaned and fell back onto the couch, determined to go back to sleep and forget it. His phone pinged again, signaling another text from Sora.

_ice cream?_

Roxas smiled in spite of himself and quickly sent an affirmative, gathering his things.

HueyDueyLouie was packed. Roxas suspected that theirs wasn’t the only class that had been cancelled. While they waited in the queue, Sora texted the rest of their friends to meet them. At the counter, he ordered a Hunny Bunny, but Roxas hesitated.

“Aren’t you going to have your usual?” Sora prodded.

“I feel like something different today,” Roxas said, leaning over the counter to crank the lever on the slot machine. He ended up with a chocolate/pomegranate/coconut combination and considered himself lucky. Hayner once pulled the disastrous trio of mint chip/banana/bubblegum. Only Olette and Kairi could join them, which ended up being a good thing because the only table they could get was tiny and crowded into the corner. Their class had been canceled, too.

“I’m behind on the reading,” Olette groaned. “And we have midterms next week.”

“We have a paper due,” Roxas sympathized, swirling the chocolate and coconut together. He hated writing essays. Two weeks ago they had to turn in rough drafts. The TA marked Roxas’s up more than Riku’s or Sora’s, but they were helpful notes. He had no idea who the TA was – probably some grad student - but was actually looking forward to spending the weekend improving on his draft.

“Riku couldn’t come because he wanted to work on his,” Sora added.

“Your boyfriend’s such a wet blanket,” Roxas said. “He always blows us off to study.”

“Eat your Ass-Kicker,” Sora retorted.

* * *

 

Roxas was fully prepared with a question that no one but Hayner could answer correctly when he walked into class next Tuesday, but his seat was empty. He sat down immediately, anticipating Axel’s arrival with a feeling of triumph that turned into irritation when class started and Sora was asking after him. He actually felt weird sitting in his seat again. He was so unsettles that he turned in his paper without giving it a second look.

“I’d be so lucky to get a B on that paper,” Sora groaned as they loaded up their lunch trays.

“I hate midterms,” Roxas echoed his tone.

Their table was crowded when they sat down and Tidus was in the middle of a story. “ – on the fifth floor of the library, can’t remember what I did with my clothes, and my midterm’s in less than an hour.”

Naminé choked on her sandwich.

“So what did you do?” Kairi asked.

“Called The Organization,” he replied, stealing a coconut pastry from Wakka’s tray.

“Seriously? And someone answered?”

“Yeah. Some guy picked up, and a few minutes later someone else brought me a bag with some clothes in it and breakfast in a cup.”

“ _The Organization_?” Wakka stole his pastry back. “I thought they were a myth.”

“I thought so, too, but I was desperate.”

“They helped me once,” Sora added.

“When?” Riku demanded, incredulous.

“Last month. Kairi and Selfie dragged me to that party at the sorority they want to rush next year and we got separated. They weren’t answering their phones and I didn’t know how to get back to my dorm from the row. I asked around and this older girl offered me a ride. When she dropped me off she gave me a phone number and said to call if I ever needed help again.”

“Was she Organization?” Tidus asked, interested.

“She was wearing a pin.”

A flash of silver crossed Roxas’s thoughts. A Roman numeral. He suddenly felt as though he were being watched. He couldn’t shake the sensation even as the conversation turned to everyone’s plans for the weeklong holiday. He had an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach for the rest of the day.

* * *

 

“When I was six, what did I want to be when I grew up?” Roxas leaned over the desk next to Axel’s – the one Axel was _sitting_ in. He was starting to have a hunch.

“Fireman.”

Roxas leaned further.

“How much older than me is Sora?”

Axel looked up from his notes. “Thirteen minutes.” His eyes were like malachite.

An accusation rose from the bottom of Roxas’s lungs, but he surprised himself by leaning just that much further. Axel’s mouth was firm against his. Roxas swayed and caught himself, his palm snagging on the heavy metal pin on Axel’s jacket. When he pulled away, he was glad to see that the lecture hall was mostly empty. No one was watching them. Axel smirked at him and Roxas blushed, vaulting clumsily over the row of seats in front of them and tucking himself in tightly.

“Struck out again?” Sora said when he and Riku came in.

Roxas blushed harder.

Thankfully, their midterm papers were returned, offering a distraction. Roxas lit up when he saw his grade and the note written by the TA.

“Nice,” Riku complimented.

“TA’s notes really helped.”

“Yeah, Axel’s great. He’s been TA in some of my other classes.”

Roxas sat up straighter and ventured a glance behind him. “What.”

“You didn’t know he was the TA?” Sora blinked.

 _Your writing has improved so much. Great job taking feedback and working your own angle, Roxas._ He scowled at the note and stuffed the paper into his backpack.

He skipped class the next session, citing a cold. When he came back after the weekend he sat down with one seat between him and Axel.

“Don’t want your seat?”

“I like this one better,” Roxas shrugged, not looking at him.

When class was over, Axel called out to them. “Hey, I’m having a moving party this weekend. You all want to come?”

“A moving party?”

“I’m moving out of the dorms into a five story walkup. I need help getting my stuff into my apartment and I’m buying pizzas.”

“We’ll be there,” Sora promised.

* * *

 

Axel’s other friends handled the big furniture, leaving the boxes for Roxas, Sora, and Riku. It was a small apartment, but it was clean, and the kitchen was really nice. The table had been brought in first, pizza boxes laid out. Roxas counted three more pins. They all seemed to know him. He wasn’t sure whether it was because Axel had talked about him, or because they were Organization. Without his noticing, they all left. Even Riku and Sora.

“I’m going to kill them,” Roxas hissed under his breath.

“Don’t blame them,” Axel intoned from behind the refrigerator. It whined and hummed and Axel stepped out. Roxas was acutely aware of their height difference.

“You asked everyone to leave.”

“When you kissed me, did that mean anything?” Axel asked.

Roxas stepped back, floored.

“It meant something to me,” Axel continued. He spread his arms open, palms up.

For a moment, Roxas considered it. But instead he turned on his heel and ran.

Sora was waiting for him in front of his dorm. “I’m spending the night.” He didn’t have anything on him, but Roxas let him in. Pence’s door was closed tight. He was probably coding and hadn’t heard Sora knocking.

Roxas lent him some clothes to sleep in and dislodged his extra futon from under his bed.

They ate ice cream and watched horror movies until three am, when Sora finally flopped over and pulled the duvet over his head.

“Riku kissed me,” he muttered.

“I kissed Axel,” Roxas countered.

Sora pulled down the duvet. “You like him.”

“I chikened out.”

“Me, too.” He was silent for a long time. “Riku’s in love with me.”

Roxas scoffed.

“What are you going to do about Axel?” Sora hit him with a pillow.

“You still got that number for The Organization?”

* * *

 

The seminar room was uncomfortably bright and small. Only two other people were in the room, and one of them was Axel’s friend Larxene. She grinned when she saw him.

“That’s Axel’s seat,” she pointed with her pen.

Roxas slid into it and watched the clock.

Five minutes before the class started, Axel walked in. He was looking at his phone, but when he looked up, his eyes locked on Roxas’s. For a frightening moment, Roxas thought he might ignore him.

“You’re in my seat,” he said.

“Ask me a question. If I get it right, you find another seat,” Roxas echoed.

Axel leaned over the seat next to Roxas. “Who am I in love with?”

Roxas’s breath hitched in his throat. “…me.”

Axel slid into the seat next to him, reaching out and brushing his fingers against Roxas’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Just so you know:
> 
> Pence is the mastermind behind The Organization.


End file.
